


Happy Anniversary

by Fairyglass



Series: Fluff Bingo Q1, 2019 [5]
Category: Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Implied Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 16:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18529009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairyglass/pseuds/Fairyglass
Summary: When Sam was a kid, August 20th, 1977 meant wanting to be an astronaut.  Once she joined the SGC, it felt a little bit like cheating in all the best ways.  Jack helps her celebrate.





	Happy Anniversary

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [DW's Fluff Bingo](https://fluffbingo.dreamwidth.org/), Q1 2019
> 
> Square: Distance

While they receive electronic transmission from the SGC at least once a week, the physical delivery of goods only come to Atlantis by way of the Daedalus once every 4 to 6 weeks - barring emergencies, naturally. 

Once all the foodstuffs and equipment crates are sorted through, the Quartermaster’s office turns to the bases care packages and personal mail. Everyone gets email at this point in the expedition, so any honest to God parcels are more precious than rubies, a taste of home no carefully redacted signature file could ever convey. Major Lorne takes it upon himself personally to deliver anything meant for senior staff, collecting their drab olive mail pouches once they're ready.

“Colonel Carter?” He hovers just outside her office. Three of the four walls are made entirely of glass, so it’s impossible to be discrete. Lorne instead goes for respectfully loitering in the doorway until acknowledged. She’s meeting with McKay and Sheppard and easily motions him in.

“Oh, mail,” McKay says eagerly, leaning forward in his chair. Even Sheppard unslouches himself a bit in anticipation.

Lorne cradles the zippered bags against his hip, sorting them accordingly. “Ma’am,” handing over Sam’s. “Sir,” for John. “Doc,” for McKay, despite the brief flicker of a glower. McKay prefers ‘Doctor’ and has reminded him of that on numerous occasions, which is exactly why Evan goes out of his way to abbreviate it any chance he can get away with it.

Sam opens her pouch first and seems to be looking for something very specific, hand quick to sort. It surprises Lorne, then, when what she pulls out isn’t the ubiquitous beige folder or manilla envelope of official correspondence. Instead, what she pulls out is a powder blue mailing envelope, like something you’d get on your birthday. And oh shit, is it her birthday and he didn’t know?

He looks down at Sheppard with a hint of alarm, which seems to confuse John who just blinks up at him.

“Thank you?” John tries, at a loss why Lorne might be giving him the wild eye.

McKay notices the envelope too, but not for its shape or size, but because he’s almost positive it has those glow in the dark star stickers you used to stick up on your ceiling as a kid, all over it. They’re a pale, unnatural seafoam green against the soft blue. It gives it all a very macaroni art project look.

Her grin is big and infectious as she flips the envelope over. McKay ducks his head to read the front: 

_Sam Carter_  
_Lost City of Atlantis_  
_Outer Space_

His frown was swift and severe, so much so that Sheppard catches it and easily follows his line of sight. John blink at that too, because what?

“W-what in the--” McKay points accusingly at Sam’s hands and she suddenly comes back to herself, startled. 

“Oh, uhm. Right. Sorry.” She all but throws it back into the pouch, color coming up onto her cheeks, but not before Sheppard and McKay both catch what’s written on the back: _Do not open before August 20th! Unless you get this after the 20th, then open immediately!_

.:O:. | .:O:. | .:O:.

With the go ahead from General Hammond, they walk up the ramp towards the stargate. Teal’c is through first, then Daniel, but Sam hesitated for just a moment. A small smile curved her mouth, but her attention didn’t seem to actually be for the event horizon.

Jack came up besides her, first concerned then puzzled. “Captain?”

“What’s today’s date?”

“Uh.” He’s taken aback by the question. “August 20th?”

Her smile is immediate and radiant. “Exactly.” Then she stepped through, pulled across the universe. 

Jack looked back towards the control room, catching Hammond’s eye. George arched his eyebrows, but Jack could only shrug: Hell if he knew. Adjusting his cap, Jack stepped through himself, joining his team a couple galaxies away.

After, when SG-1 is back two days later, Jack catches Daniel on his way to his office. “Hey, I need that big brain of yours.”

“Okay?” Daniel narrowed his eyes and bit at his bottom lip, waiting. Jack’s questions tended to run the gambit between engaging and thought provoking to elaborate scaffolding for bad puns. You never knew which direction the pendulum was going to swing until he opened his mouth.

“Does the date August 20th mean anything to you?”

“It was two days ago?”

“Yes, I know,” Jack blinked slowly and deliberately. “I meant beyond that.”

“I don’t know?”

“Not helping.”

“ _Should_ it mean something?”

“I don’t know? I wouldn’t be asking you if I knew.” They narrowed their eyes at one another.

"Okay, well," Daniel finally said, giving himself a little shake to break the staring contest. “I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. You want me to look into it?”

Jack thought about it but then waved him off. “Nah, thanks.” He clapped Daniel on the shoulder before moving on.

“Yep,” Daniel muttered with dark resignation. “Good talk.”

Jack discreetly asked a few more people on base before Janet Frasier posited, “Doesn’t Teal’c have a World Book Encyclopedia set in his room? Yeah,” she says, nodding quickly. “Because he liked Cassie’s so much, remember? You should go look it up.” 

“Right!” He gave her enthusiastic double-snap finger-guns in appreciation. 

The next morning, Jack slid a creamy white envelope onto Carter’s breakfast tray. She watched him with heavy suspicion before flipping it over to open. What she slides out is an anniversary card where he’s scribbled a carroted ‘belated’ into the title.

“Sir?”

“Twenty years is traditionally china, by the way.”

Again, her smile is immediate and radiant if a little crooked in its wry amusement. He had been pleased with himself when he figured out the date, then amused by the idea of a card, but now he’s positively smug. Because she got it. 

Taking up his coffee cup, Jack made a vague motion with it. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why this and not, like, Sputnik or Armstrong?”

“Ah,” she said, dropping her chin softly to look down at the card again. “Because… they’re still out there, you know? Just… going. Forever going. I remember the Grand Tour. I was doing my doctorate, then my post-doc, working towards the Stargate program, and was just... everything was amazing, everything so new and incredible. And then, mission complete. But, not really? Because now… now they’re just us, humanity, laid bare, out there; always curious about what’s over the next hill. Going.” She looked up through her lashes and her eyes are so bright, so blue, and Jack is caught against the awe and wonder held inside them. “Someday they’ll pierce the heliopause, enter interstellar space. And then what? Where will they go then?” She leaned forward in her seat. “And conventionally speaking, they’re the furthest man made objects from Earth. We did that, we sent them out there.” But she tilted her head almost conspiratorially, inviting Jack to finish the secret for her.

“Until us.” 

“Exactly.”

"And _before_... all this." He motioned in an all encompassing gesture. "We did it on our own." 

"Yeah," Sam said with an endearingly humble reverence. 

“Maybe we’ll find them then,” Jack teases, his voice low.

“Maybe,” her chuckle slow and warm.

Jack ducked behind his coffee cup again, smirk hovering.

.:O:. | .:O:. | .:O:.

“No, no, no,” Rodney said quickly, still pointing. He isn’t frowning anymore; now he looks eager, even excited, edging into insufferable. “You don’t get to just tuck something like that away. What is it? C’mon," he wheedles.

“August 20th?” John asked, because he’s still very confused by everything and vaguely blames Lorne for this turn of events.

Lorne, maybe sensing that, jostles the other mail pouches still at his hip. “I, uh, I should probably go finish delivering these. Colonel, Colonel, Doctor.” He bobbed his head and beat a retreat back out onto the mezzanine. 

John just squinted after him.

“Wait,” Rodney said with a snap of his fingers and a distant look in his eyes. “August 20th, 1977?” He split a huge grin, looking between Sheppard to Carter. “How preciously sentimental, if painfully irrelevant at this point. I mean, look around you!” 

Carter dropped her chin and gave Rodney a hard stare. “McKay.” His name was as much a deterrent as a warning. Thankfully he had the grace to flinch a little, worried.

“You know, I think we’re done here after all,” John offers an easy smile, but clamps onto Rodney’s arm like a vice. 

McKay squawked as he was hauled up to standing. “Now just a min-- waugh!” He almost dropped his own mail pouch.

“We’ll get you those numbers,” John told her pleasantly around Rodney’s protests.

“Thank you,” Sam says, levels to her gratitude.

When they’re gone, she gently pulls out Jack’s card again, fingers brushing over the raised stickers fondly.

.:O:. | .:O:. | .:O:.

For the next ten years after that, that first year they're SG-1, Jack gives Sam an anniversary card on Voyager 2’s launch date, August 20th - even when he has to launch the card itself to catch her.

This year, the year she’s on Atlantis, he scribbles on the inside: _happen to find that golden record yet? I could do with some Chuck Berry._


End file.
